exchange-currency

Krieger, I'm going to guess, didn't really know for sure what kind of book he wanted to write so he kind of included a bit of everything, but gave us not enough of anything.

It would have been great if the book had been written in the same style that Jim Cramer's book revealing how he ran his hedge fund was written, lot's of action and description. Krieger includes some of this, like how he'd spend 18 to 20 hours a day in front of a computer and wonder about his life. But he just didn't get in depth enough.

He covers a lot of history, but again, it was not enough if history was what you were looking for. In my case, it was a bit much, I really didn't need to hear so much about the specific names and dates, I wanted more of the individual trading side of his story, what he did and why. How it worked or didn't.

Of course, this book is totally out of date. For that reason, it is actually even more interesting in a way, as the author has no idea how FX trading will advance.

The book itself offers no specific strategies or advice on investing in the FX market, however, I guess that would make sense as when it was written, only pro's or people with a lot of cash could enter this market.

If Krieger were to decide to write a modern work, covering the topic of trading "inside the trillion-dollar world of currency trading" as the cover states, it would be something I'd love to read. I can't recommend this work currently, without the caveat that the reader realize it's limited value as far as trading in today's market. The history, however, is interesting as is the limited view the author gives us as to his trading. Whether the price of the book is worth paying, I'd recommend it only to the reader that is sure of what they are getting.

This is a great book. Mr.Krieger gives you the history of how foreign currency trading came about. He also provides you insight into how curreny trading work and more importantly how it fails.

He doesn't give specific strategies on how to trade currencies, but he does introduce vocabulary and resources to help you get started. In that respect the book is out of date. There is no discussion on the internet and how that has changed the face of currency trading forever.

This is a good book, a foreign exchange classic that wouldn't hurt any currency trader if he kept a copy on his shelf.

As someone who is not an economist, I am in no position to rate Tan's arguments vis-a-vis the positions of other economists. However, as an introduction to the complexities of the 1998 meltdown in Asian economies, this book is first-rate. It is very well organized.

Dealing with the crisis chronologically, and country-by-country, Tan is able to illustrate patterns that span the whole event, and unique events within each country. He treats the responses of each country, and does not shirk from providing a sober and often scathing assessment of the attitudes and policy responses of individual countries. His political analyses are just as useful, since the implications of the event have so much to do with the political makeup of individual countries, and their political and financial institutions.

Market data is used extensively to support his claim. There is a tremendous and often overwhelming plethora of data. However, if one is just looking for an identification of major patterns and analyses, Tan illustrates this very clearly within his chapters.

This book is a great resource for someone who wants access to source data that is relevant to the Asian Meltdown, as well as just a broad introduction to the phenomena that helps a reader trying to understand such a significant event (or series of events).

This is a great book! Rosenberg has succeeded in making a dry and complicated topic, foreign exchange, both interesting and understandable. The chapter on intervention is especially timely and enlightening. Rosenberg is rated tops in his field by professional fx traders and portfolio managers, yet he has succeeded in writing a book that is both useful and interesting to both professionals and nonprofessionals. This is a must read for anyone involved in international markets.

Is a very good introduction for a Foreign Exchange Market. Specially in futures markets

The author's expertise in the subject matter becomes apparent when you read his lucid explanations of a subject matter that can be quite dry. He successfully intertwines historical events and human stories with the technical discussions of each section to keep the reader engaged and interested. Despite the breadth of the book it is clear that the author has spent considerable time researching the individual sections and has presented the material in a methodical and organized fashion. Thus it clearly serves as a useful professional guide and should be on every money manager's shelf. I especially enjoyed reading the beginning chapters which focus on the historical background and the arrangement of the global currency markets. The author has many clear examples to illustrate his points and thus the book will also appeal to the novice who wants to learn the fundamentals of the currency markets.

This book contains both the theoretical models of currency substitution and key articles and contributions. It is comprehensive even if a little slack in its mathematical expositions. It is a great survey of the recent literature on the topic but could be more coherent.

It appears that Gotthelf dictated much of this book into a tape recorder, some far-away typist created the manuscript, and nobody bothered to read or edit the final result. How else to explain that "Jim Ellis is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oracle" on p.43 (I thought it was Larry Ellison)? These sorts of editorial lapses are rife throughout the book.

To name but a few examples, Fig 6.5 caption says "Cash Currency trading screen" but it's actually a bar chart of Yen futures (p.124)

The data for Figure 8.11 (a perpetual contracts bar chart of Yen) is presented with the caption of Figure 8.10 ("Soybeans futures monthly chart"). No soybeans chart is presented at all; instead, a Nikkei futures chart mysteriously appears (p. 212)

Figure 8.41 is printed upside down! (p.236). Honestly. This is perhaps the ultimate insult to the reader and ought to be a source of acute embarrassment to the editor and author.

Academy Award nominee James Caan, with two a's, will be amused to read p. 89 which states "... has been depicted in fiction such as the movie Rollerball starring James Cann" with two n's.

Those who buy the book believing it may deliver on the dustjacket's promise "How to trade the world's biggest market" will receive a disappointment. The only trading strategy Gotthelf reveals is "Go Long when price crosses above a moving average, Go Short when price crosses below a moving average." Then he regurgitates standard methods of creating a synthetic position using options. There is absolutely nothing new here.

No review would be complete without mentioning Gotthelf's mysterious concept of Parity. First he tells you it's "a ratio that always equals one" (page 24). Next he tells you "there are no exact relationships" in FOREX (page 32), leaving you to wonder how Parity could always equal one if there are no exact relationships. Then he muddles through two hundred more pages and eventually you, the reader, decode the fact (which Gotthelf never bothers to state exactly) that his "Parity" actually means "Equilibrium". Great. But where's the insight?

I own several other Wiley Finance books and all of them have wonderful quotes from important figures in the trading world, in the form of testimonials and gushing recommendations on the rear dustjacket. Kaufman's "Trading Systems and Methods" has five, Hill and Pruitt's "The Ultimate Trading Guide" has four, Ryan Jones's "The Trading Game" has five, Sweeney's "Maximum Adverse Excursion" has three, et cetera ad nauseum. But this currency book by Gotthelf has exactly zero quotes on the dustjacket. No recommendations, no congratulations, no endorsements. I suggest you follow the advice of everyone who DIDN'T write a recommendation for Gotthelf's book: stay away.

As the author of the book "Futures For Small Speculators" I tend to be very critical of books that discuss my industry. Although this book had a few editorial mistakes, Mr.Gotthelf still did a solid job of getting his point across. For a beginner this is a great start. For more indepth analysis I would go to Mr. Cornelius Luca's books.

OK, I don't know if Soros used this resource, but he probably would have enjoyed it. This is a classic for anyone who wants to engage in serious trading or speculation in the foreign exchange markets. This book entertains as it illustrates. One caveat is convertibility risk detailed in Tavakoli's book on "Credit Derivatives". We saw this happen in several Latin American countries, Iran, and more, and that effects settlement on foreign exchange and foreign exchange options. Another product Tavakoli writes about is credit default contingent foreign exchange. One can speculate and earn big premiums, but the risk is difficult to evaluate.

Table of content:
1. Dollarization: A premier
2. Dollarization: Analytical issues
3. Using balance sheet data to identify sovereign default and devaluation risk
4. Dollarization and the lender of last resort
5. Measuring costs and benefits of dollarization: An application of Central Americana and Caribbean countries
6. Dollarization: The link between devaluation and default risk
7. Implementation guidelines for dollarization and monetary unions
8. The political economy of dollarization: Domestic and international factors

Most of these old papers (from the academic time line) can be downloaded from Internet for free by searching from google.com, for example. These days Economics books by MIT Press tend to collect old papers and keep the table of content secret. What a good strategy.

As opposed to most of the literature on the topic (de jure/formal/full dollarization Salvadorean style; NOT de facto financial dollarization that characterizes many developing countries), this volume succeeds in presenting a balanced compendium of papers that summarizes the main issues, informing the reader without trying to sell a particular option. The Primer is particularly helpful for dollarization curious policy makers and economist without an emerging market orientation. While briefing on the contents of the different chapters of the volume, it tackles a number of diverse and related topics, ranging from old-style optimum currency area criteria to modern-style developing-coutries-cannot-manage-their-own-currency type of arguments (the so called monetary credibility argument), to non-economical political considerations, always avoiding easy simplifications of generalizations. For that reason, it may read as a little derivative sometimes, but a second reading and a long reference list provides a fairly comprehensive unbiased introduction that is difficult to find elsewhere. For those whose want more, the chapters elaborate on particular themes discussed in the introductory primer. The language is as diverse as the authors of the papers, going from an analytical presentation of the credibility-flexibility tradeoff by Chang and Velasco to a down-to-earth step by step guide for a prospective dollarizer by Gruber and co-authors, to a descriptive account of the political aspects by Frieden. All in all, a nice introduction for the lay and an up to date reference book for the initiated. (True, papers can be downloaded, some even in the final version, from the Internet. But this happens to be the rule rather than the exception in these days. At least, MIT Press has done an unexpectedly creative job with the cover.)

Paul is one of the famous personalities in the world of finance. Any person who has not heard of him has got no right to be in the field of finance. For most of the Fortune 500 corporation in US, about 70-80% of revenues is coming from abroad(read foreign currency). By reading this book one gets a real perspective on the latest things happening in the field of foreign currency.

Henning gives a comprehensive account of the foreign exchange markets in the 1970s and 1980s, covering in depth the developments of the international financial system as it came to terms with the fragmentation of Bretton Woods. As a reference work to refresh the memory on developments (particularly surrounding the Plaza and Louvre periods) it is a useful account.

Aside from the dated nature of the book (analysis ends basically with Clinton's accession to the presidency) there are some other problems. Analysing the US, Germany and Japan in distinct sections means that there is a rather disjointed approach to the work - to get a coherent account of international co-operation in the mid 1980s requires some skipping back and forth in the text, for instance. In addition, the analysis of policy and politics (whatever one thinks of the author's conclusions) comes across more as an afterthought to the chronology.

The detailed accounts of policy making in the 1980s makes this a useful reference book to those studying currency markets, but it should not be thought of as particularly strong when it comes to analytics.